Platforms such as aircraft and ground platforms are subject to structural stresses that may cause flexure of the structure of the platform. The platform may be designed to incur such flexure. Flexure may also be predicted by simulating operation of the platform. However, these methods of determining or predicting flexure do not provide for adequate control of the platform structure for real-time operational or environmental conditions.
Known methods of navigating, such as using a Global Positioning System (GPS), provide earth-relative position, velocity, and altitude measurements. These known methods provide data points representative of a platform as a whole and provide no information regarding the structure of the platform.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods of determining navigation states of a platform beyond the position, velocity, and altitude of the platform as a whole. There is a further need for determining states of the structure of a platform for use in controlling the structure of the platform in response to external environmental variables.